I was sent to a gay conversation camp operation somewhere in the Northwest US. What I’ve been through is unbelievable.
WARNING: The following Creepypasta contains content that may offend LGBTQ+ users. View discretion is advised. I don't know if this is the right place for such a post, but I've been trying for years to get some answers, or at least get into contact with others who experienced this, and I've had little luck. This happened 16 years ago, but I'll try to be as in-depth as possible here. Sometime in June 2004 (if I remember correctly, it was a Sunday, most likely the 20th?), I went to a gay conversion camp. I was 15 at the time. My mother had me pack some clothes in a backpack the night before we left, and I didn't know I was going until then. She and I left the house very early, around 6 am, and drove out of Manhattan and northwards to Westchester. We stopped at the North White Plains metro north station there, parked, and went to a bus stop; I think it was the one on Haarlem Ave. We waited for a little while, until about 7:30-ish(?) and then a large, unmarked cargo van drove up-- possibly a Chevy Express or something like that? It was a while back, but it looked like a typical work van. Anyway, my mother talked to the driver and then told me to get in. She had mentioned in the car that I was going to be going to summer camp, but I didn't know anything beyond that. But I was terrified of her, so I got in. The passenger area of the van was separated from the driver's cab like a taxi, and all the windows were covered. It was extremely dark, but I think there were already 2 other boys around my age in there. We were told to sit down, put our backpacks on our laps, and be quiet. We made a couple more stops after that and picked up a few other boys; I think there were 8 or 9 of us total. I don't know how many or where we were driving, since the windows were covered and we couldn't see the driver's cab, but when we stopped and were told to get up and get out of the van, it was already dark out. We were in a gravel parking lot, and there were other similar looking vans in the lot, but the only lights were on the exterior of the building next to the lot. I think it was surrounded mostly by trees-- I've always thought it might have been upstate NY-- but the whole parking lot was fenced in, and the building next door looked kind of similar to the temporary buildings you sometimes see at schools, but larger. We were led in, and went into one of the first rooms in the hallway we entered in, and it was just a room with 3 bunk beds. We were each assigned a bunk, and told to go to sleep. Our backpacks were taken, and they said they'd bring them back in the morning after they were inspected. A lot of boys came with cell phones, MP3 players, journals, pens, etc. that they never saw again. All we were allowed to have were the clothes that were in our bags and the bags themselves. Anyway, there were three other similar bunk rooms in this building. Two were already occupied when we got there, and the other one arrived sometime later in the night. One or two rooms weren't completely full, so if my memory serves me right, I think there were 33 of us total there, all boys between 12 and 18, but most being 16-17. I was 15. We were woken in the morning (no idea of the time, windows were almost all blocked off), to come in and sit in a lounge-like area with tables and chairs. That's pretty similar to how the whole place looked, actually. We were basically given a speech about why we were there-- because we were all experiencing "homosexual urges"-- and that we were going to be addressing and fixing that. We were all given name tags with our first names on them, and told not to share any personal information. I was terrified out of my mind, but I stayed quiet like everyone else. They told us the basic schedule-- wake up, shower, go to breakfast, do "therapeutic activities", go to lunch, do "therapeutic activities", go to dinner, relax, go to bed. Anyway, we started with going to the locker rooms, where we were basically told to either undress or be undressed by the camp "counselors", so most of us just listened and undressed ourselves. We showered, and ate breakfast. When we got to our first bit of "therapeutic activities" we were taken back to the lounge area and fed some pseudoscientific bullshit about how the strength of emotions is more important than alignment of the feeling (i.e. the extremity of elation or devastation is more important than the fact that one is happy and one is sad). We were then told that we were experiencing and engaging in degenerate behavior, etc. for being gay and that HIV/AIDS was the body's natural rejection of such vile feelings. They essentially said they were going to turn our attraction to homosexuality into revulsion, and then separated into groups to go to small group therapy. The therapy sessions were where the "conversion" started, and I won't go into too much detail, but it did involve prolonged food and water fasts as punishment for our "homosexual feelings", as well as loud, screaming lectures about how being gay was going to destroy our lives and the lives of everyone around us, and how we were giving other people diseases with our disgusting "behavior", etc. a lot of homophobic vitriol. The once-a-day small group therapy sessions during the 'relaxation' times involved sitting in a circle, confessing to any homosexual feelings or urges, and getting a verbal battering about how disgusting and shameful and filthy you are from the counselors and from the other boys. A lot of the others cried a lot, and I cried too during some of the small group sessions; none of us actually wanted to be saying those things to each other, but we also all desperately wanted out, were willing to do what it took to get out, and were starting to genuinely believe those things about ourselves and about being gay in general. By the two week mark, the camp had been mostly just deprivation of the outside world, verbal abuse, and being taught and internalizing all kinds of terribly homophobic beliefs, but things changed after. We would go days without eating, and many mornings they would tie us to these cheap, cafeteria-esque chairs and force us to watch videos of "homosexual behavior"-- anything from just men kissing and holding hands to outright porn-- interspersed with videos of straight up torture and extremely graphic violence. The counselors started hitting us with paddles and sticks or slapping us when they'd make us confess during the small group sessions after dinner, and I can't tell you how many hours all of us spent crying and/or vomiting after being forced into that right after dinner. After a little while longer, they doubled down even more. I want to say we had been there for 4 or 5 weeks at that point, but with all the abuse and the long fasts and the violence it all kind of blended together. They got more extreme with the physical harm and the screaming, and I remember sobbing and feeling hopeless and wanting to just curl up and die, but also feeling terrified out of my mind enough to do just about anything the counselors said at that point. Most of all, they really got to me with the shame and repression and self hatred. I tried just about every method I could to just end the whole thing right then, but they made sure we didn't have access to anything we could hurt ourselves with. During the last week, they started telling us that we were going to start "living the consequences" of our sexuality, and sat us all down together during a therapy session to explain in-depth how the AIDS virus kills you and how it's the body's natural response to homosexuality. We had already heard that from them, but it still frightened just about every single one of us. Over that last week, they'd pull each of us one by one to a room by ourselves, where we'd have to answer questions about our "homosexual urges". I tried to answer however I felt would get me out of there quickest, but looking back I don't think our answers mattered, I think it was just reinforcement of what they taught us. They tied us to the cafeteria chairs, brought in men who were all much larger physically and stronger than we were, and molested us, told us the bodily reaction they forced was evidence that we were still homosexual, and let the men rape us. The counselors told us afterwards that that's what being gay is and does to you, and told us that our bodies would start to "manifest" HIV/AIDS and we'd die soon, or infect someone else. They returned (most) of our belongings-- no electronics or anything we could have written or recorded on during the camp-- and dropped us back off where they got us. The camp lasted about 7 weeks total, and I got home August 10th. I returned about 15 pounds underweight, suicidal, traumatized, and absolutely terrified out of my mind. Things at home weren't good, as you can imagine-- my parents were the types who would send their kid to that kind of a camp, after all-- but I did find out I was HIV positive about 4 months after coming home. I had never had any kind of sexual or romantic experience beyond a kiss before the camp, nor did I have any in between the camp and testing positive for HIV. Don't worry, I did manage to get into treatment a few years later and I've been doing much better, but I'm just about positive it was the events of that last week at the camp that gave me and the other boys who attended HIV. I'm posting this because I'm trying to investigate these camps, get into contact with others who went through them, and figure out who the hell ran them and what ever happened to them/whether they ever faced any consequences for what they did. I've managed to get into contact with just two of the others who attended, and they also both tested positive for HIV after the camp despite not having it beforehand. I know 2004 wasn't the first year they ran the camp, because one of the two survivors I've found attended in 2002, and I doubt that 2004 was the last year either. They were both picked up from somewhere in the New York/New England area, and both describe the same kind of treatment and facility. It wasn't a religious camp, and there were kids from a variety of religious backgrounds, but everyone seemed to be at least upper middle class. It was in a secluded and/or rural area, with lots of trees, and the facility had a fenced in gravel parking lot and a very large, modular, temporary building like this. Based on the length of the drive, I'm pretty sure it was either in upstate NY or another nearby area. I don't know who the counselors were or what organization they were a part of, and as far as I know the camp didn't have a name (or at least not one they told us). I don't know if it's still in operation or not, but they abused and traumatized minors, and gave at least 3 men an incurable, potentially fatal disease and probably gave it to many more. The lack of survivors I've found has scared me a little, but I'm holding out hope that we just haven't located each other yet and there are others who are still alive. The counselors there seemed like ex-military types, but they also could have just been very strict, violent people. They were all adult men. If anyone knows anything about any irreligious conversion camp/therapy operations in the US, or would be willing to help investigate these camps, I would appreciate any help or info you may have. Thank you. I know it's a shot in the dark, but I don't want this to go forgotten or unpunished. Or, if you have ever conducted any kind of investigation like this and would happen to know anything about finding information on things like this, I would greatly appreciate your input or suggestions on where to look next. And if this sounds like your experience or similar to yours, please PM me! I'm trying to gather as much info as I possibly can about all of this in the hopes that we can figure out who the hell runs these places and hopefully have them held accountable for abusing, traumatizing, and deliberately transmitting HIV to gay minors. Category:Fanfic Category:Creepypasta